Crazed: A Blood Money Novel (20 page)

“Nothing could be enough when you compare it to what we had, Ilda.” His glare was ferocious, blazing, but his anger didn’t bruise her, because that fury wasn’t at her. “What we
have
.”

Before she could say anything, Arlo abandoned the dinosaurs and stepped into the space between Casey’s bent knees. Her tiny hands went to the day’s worth of scruff stubbling his jaw, and then she signed at him.

Tension seized Casey’s features, and Ilda knew what he felt, because she’d been where he was right now. The stress of not understanding what was being communicated, the fear that anything you said wouldn’t be comprehended in turn. “What did she say?”

Ilda reached out to comb her fingers through the tangled ends of Arlo’s loosened hair, the straight strands so unlike her own, silky between her fingertips. “She wants to know if you’re her friend.”

His face an open book of emotion, Casey nodded at his daughter and was rewarded by her sleepy smile and small arms banding tightly around his neck. His breathing hitched audibly before his own arms gathered Arlo close. He held her, Ilda noted, as he’d held Adam earlier this week in the stable—one big hand rubbing soothingly along her spine, the other gently cupping the back of her head. A faint tremor shook his muscled frame as he turned his face to the side of her neck and inhaled deeply, his eyes closing so the lashes laid shadows along the battlements of his cheekbones.

He was holding his daughter for the very first time.

Ilda blinked rapidly, warding off the dangerous emotion that threatened to break this fragile oasis the three of them had built in the nursery for these few stolen moments. She could feel the joy radiating off him, so acute as to be painful, and when she heard his shaky exhalation, wet with unshed tears, a few of her own escaped to slip down her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered closed briefly.

“Hey.” A brush of warm, callused skin against the wetness had her blinking, only to lock gazes with Casey as he wiped away her tears with one hand, the other still holding Arlo—who was quickly drifting off to sleep against his shoulder—as though he never intended to let go of the girl again. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

His jaw touched Arlo’s temple. “For this. For her.”

More tears spilled over. “We’re coming with you tomorrow, Casey,” she whispered, making sure to say his name as it was meant to be said—as it deserved to be said. “We’re coming home with you.” Wherever home was, that was where she and Arlo would be, forty-eight hours from now.

“Then do the same as Isobel—pack a small bag, necessities only. Everything you’d take if you knew you would never return.” Careful not to jostle Arlo, who was close to drooling, he reached behind him and withdrew a gun from the waistband of his trousers.

He offered it to Ilda.

She flinched away.

The gun remained in his outstretched hand. “You know how to use one of these, yes?”

“No.”
She frowned at him. “And I pity you the world you live in that you assume I would.”

“It’s your world, too, baby. Just for one more day.” He glanced down at Arlo before shifting his grip on the weapon. “This is the safety.” His thumb indicated a tiny plastic latch-like thing. “While it’s in this position, the gun won’t go off, okay? But I’ve got the chamber already loaded for you, so all you need to do is flip this in the other direction, aim it and pull the trigger.” He set the gun on the rug beside her, then lifted his hand once more to cup her jaw. “Sleep in here with Arlo tonight, with the door locked. You have your mobile?”

She nodded.

“You call me at any time, and I’ll come. No matter what. Understand?” His gaze darkened. “No matter what. But until you call me, you need to be ready for anything, and that means a gun. I promise, you’ll never have to touch one again after tomorrow.”

Exhaling slowly, Ilda laid her hand over the uncomfortably warm metal of the handgun, trying not to show her distaste. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

Chapter Seventeen

Casey had proposed to her on this balcony, overlooking the courtyard. Though it hadn’t been so much a proposal as a demand—which, Ilda mused darkly, must simply be his baseline. Making demands, expecting his commands to be followed.

So long as those commands kept her and Arlo alive, Ilda had decided she could heed them.

The view was much the same as it had been the day she’d said yes to Casey, warm air and bright flowers and a vista of hills and sky that reminded her why she loved her country. Colombia was beautiful, its people strong and courageous, and though she had traveled much of the world with Théa when their music had taken off, Colombia was her home and all she truly knew. She’d been willing to leave with Casey as his wife four years ago, willing to leave Medellín behind, but that sense of adventure had been stuffed in a box in the back of her mind and thoroughly ignored in favor of living in the present, protecting her daughter and forgetting she had ever recklessly given her heart to a man who had been little more than a forbidden stranger.

She’d often wondered whether her grief had left her more susceptible to him in that moment. She’d wondered if, perhaps, her body had fooled her heart, mistaking lust and compatibility for actual love. More than that, she’d feared, upon reflection, that she had been weakened—by violence, by loss, by her own need for affection and attention—when she decided to go all in with Casímiro Cortez.

Strangely, those concerns had been erased by his reappearance, this time as Casey Faraday. She
knew
who he was now, and deep down, Casí and Casey remained the same. Big and bossy, shoddy at shielding his emotions—at least from her—and a protector. He was the human equivalent of a savage guard dog, two shades shy of feral and clever enough to keep his wits about him, biding his time until the perfect moment to strike arrived.

Less than a week since his return to her life, but it felt like eons had passed, and she couldn’t deny the truth rioting in her rib cage: Ilda loved him. She’d loved him four years ago, below the surface and to the marrow of her bones, despite having only known him a few short months. She’d loved him for giving her their daughter, even when she thought him dead. She loved him now with an undeniable piercing clarity for doing everything in his power to enfold them permanently within his life, lifting them from a land where they could no longer flourish.

Her hands tightened on the smooth wood of the balcony rail. She ought to have taken Arlo from here sooner. She didn’t have much in the way of savings—Pipe had started managing her accounts when she was hospitalized after the chapel, and, as his fiancée, she’d only needed to ask for something and it would be provided to her. Still, she had enough ready to spend that she could have bought a pair of one-way plane tickets, found a cheap to-let and gotten a job as a waitress to pay the bills. She could have done
something
other than subconsciously permit Pipe to have this power over her.

What a mistake. A mistake that had cost Arlo vital months in which her linguistic needs could have been met by professionals, and cost Ilda the opportunity to heal from her losses without the crutch that Pipe had provided. She saw now that in promising to keep her safe and protect her from the bloody war that had stolen from them both, he had reinforced its existence and her fear of being crushed by sorrow once more. He’d subtly, subversively crippled her, and rage at the realization left her shaking where she stood, the hills blurring before her tear-stung eyes.

That wasn’t love, what Pipe had done to her. That was subjugation, and control...and it was something to which Casey, for all his macho high-handedness, would never subject her.

She stared blindly out at the landscape, but something sparkled in her peripheral vision. There on her finger, winking in the waning daylight, was the perfect platinum of Pipe’s engagement ring.

A ring that suddenly felt like lead, choking the veins and bones until she no longer felt the pulsing nerves beneath her skin. Panicked, she tugged at the band, nails scraping her skin as she yanked the blasted thing from her finger. Without pausing to think, she drew back her arm and threw the ring as far as she could, hearing it ping on the stones at the far edge of the courtyard.

For the first time in four years, Ilda finally felt as though she could breathe.

Movement from the opposite side of the courtyard caught her eye, and Ilda watched, shocked, as Isobel glanced cautiously around before leading Arlo from the shadows and into the stable.

What. The. Hell.

Ilda was running as her anger crested. She’d
told
the nanny that leaving the nursery today for any reason was unacceptable, and Isobel knew better than to disobey, especially after the carnage that had occurred in the dining room the night before, despite all traces of evidence having been removed before Ilda woke this morning. Arlo’s safety came first, always, and this latest infraction by Isobel would not be tolerated.

Avoiding the main level—and the hall that led to the dining room—Ilda took the circular wrought-iron stair at the far end of the balcony, clinging to the side of house and covered in vines. The courtyard cobblestones were uneven beneath her bare feet, but she didn’t care, hustling through the stable’s open doors and glancing about wildly.

There, near the end of the aisle, right before the turn that led toward the row of stalls holding Adam prisoner, stood Isobel, locked in a torrid embrace with the new brigadier, whose name Ilda still did not know. Arlo tugged at Isobel’s hand, obviously angling to get down the dark aisle to Adam, her face crumpling with displeasure as Isobel refused to release her.

Ilda stalked forward just as Arlo let out a wail. “Isobel.”

With a gasp, the nanny tore herself from the brigadier, eyes wide as she took in Ilda’s glare. “I... I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have left the nursery, but—”

“No ‘but.’” Ilda scooped Arlo into her arms. Fixing her displeasure on the brigadier, she asked, “Who are you?”

His gaze flicked to Isobel before giving Ilda his full attention. “Nico.”

She took a moment to memorize his face, the long curve of his nose, the trimmed beard, the unusual pale green of his eyes striking beneath thick black brows. “How long have you been with Pipe, Nico?”

Again, the man hesitated. “Two months. I’m from—”

“I don’t care where you’re from.” For the first time, Ilda embraced her position of power as Pipe’s fiancée, despite having tossed away his ring. “Just as I don’t care what you and Isobel get up to when she’s off-duty. But if I catch you near my daughter again, I will have Pipe remove you from this country. That is, if he doesn’t decide to take harsher measures first himself. Am I understood?”

“Yes, señora.”

“Good.” Seizing Isobel’s wrist in an unyielding grasp, Ilda turned on her heel and dragged the cowed woman from the stables and into the sunlit courtyard. Only when they were out of the lengthening shadows and in clear view of anyone watching—because something about Nico had raised the tiny hairs at her nape—did Ilda release Isobel. “What were you thinking?”

Isobel’s jaw set stubbornly as she rubbed her wrist. “I was thinking I was saying goodbye, and that you’d rather I have Arlo with me than leave her alone in the house.”

“You
told
that man we’re leaving?”

The other woman rolled her eyes. “I’m not a complete idiot,
chica
.” But there was a strange note in her voice, setting Ilda’s teeth on edge and ratcheting her paranoia up several degrees. Isobel held out her arms. “Give me Arlo, and I’ll get her fed and bathed.” She paused. “And ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

Ilda stared down her old friend. “I’m trusting that you’ll not let Arlo out of your sight once until...until tonight is over.” Because despite the paranoia, undoubtedly caused by the nerves of what the night would bring and the new road their lives would take, Ilda needed to trust someone. Isobel, with their shared history in the 13, was by default that someone.

Kissing every inch of Arlo’s round face, until the little girl was reduced to giggles, Ilda handed her to Isobel, signing in their shared language to be good for the nanny. Arlo waved, and without another word, Isobel disappeared inside the hacienda, leaving Ilda standing in the fading sunshine with her heart thumping hard against her sternum.

Reaching into her pocket, she curled her fingers around her mobile. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t hide and wait for Casey’s rescue. What had she been thinking, to not pack up and leave last night, the moment she watched Pipe murder his rivals without breaking a sweat?

Her stomach heaved as she pulled out the phone, tapping out the number with the American country code from memory. But as her thumb hovered over Call, footsteps sounded behind her, a familiar tread. Stiffening, Ilda turned to stare at Pipe.

Pipe, who held a gun trained on her heart. His smile burned her with its utter coldness. “
Querida.
Let’s call him together, shall we?”

* * *

“I still can’t believe you scored an actual invitation to this thing.”

Chandler grinned slyly at Axel Moreno, who had forgone his fake cleric’s robes tonight in favor of combat boots, forest-green fatigue pants and a black T-shirt. “You sound suitably impressed. I like you.”

The DEA agent shook his head as he continued his methodical reassembling of the two handguns he’d just cleaned and prepped. “Just didn’t realize MI6 had those kind of underworld hookups.”

“MI6 doesn’t. I do.” Chandler’s blond ponytail swung as she whipped around to glare at Tobias. “Why are you coughing at me?”

“Are you really going to call hunting down the new
de facto
leader of a Russian black-market arms ring and threatening to break all the fingers in his right hand unless he handed over the code word to get us into the auction a ‘hookup’?” Tobias fixed her with a wry look. “I ask only for my own edification.”

“You and your big words, Cheekbones.”

Tobias chuckled and playfully tugged the ends of her hair, and at any other time, Casey would’ve watched this byplay between the pair with bemusement. Right now, gathered in the basement of Our Lady of the Bleeding Heart with only an hour before Adam’s auction was to start, Casey could only pace. “Either way, we have our in.” His hand hovered over the chain around his neck, not quite touching the rounded metal links. “Chandler goes in as a representative of
Polnoch’ Pulya
, uses the password Ivashov gave her and outbids everyone else there.”

“Okumura’s keeping the plane ready for us, but we still need to divert as much attention away from our route to the airfield as possible,” Vick was saying, one fingertip tracing the line of a road on their laminated regional map spread out on the table. “Division of assets. Who’s willing to stay behind as a diversionary tactic?”

“No need for that.” Axel finished strapping one gun to his ankle, the other to his hip. “Put me in an SUV big enough to feasibly hold all of you, and I’ll drive like a bat out of hell away from the club toward Cordova International to the south.”

Vick nodded. “That’s one. Who’s our second?”

Casey was relieved to have Vick here. He had no problem letting the Brit take point on this, especially as he recognized his own emotional vulnerability in this mission. His wife, his daughter, his kid brother—all at risk at the hands of a criminal who’d tried to claim ownership of each of them in some manner. “Finn or Henry,” Casey said, volunteering his seconds in command, both of whom stood across the table from him.

Finn shrugged, brawny shoulders strapped with a dual holster as he adjusted the utility belt around his hips. “Henry’s a better driver than I am, plus I’m medical. Pretty much irreplaceable, amirite?”

His partner scowled at him. “Thanks a bunch, pal.” The former Air Force lieutenant glanced to the map. “Fine. Put me in another truck. I’ll go northwest.”

“So long as you steer clear of the hacienda to the northeast, we’re golden.” Casey looked around the table, taking in those he trusted, those who’d come to Colombia with no questions asked in order to help him. A small team, but for all that they were taking three vulnerable souls out of the country—four if the nanny joined them—a small team was all they needed.

They were Faradays, after all.

“Vick and I will go in with Chandler, as her personal security.” Tobias adjusted his necktie, not a coiffed hair out of place. “As soon as we’ve confirmed that Adam’s ours outright, Casey and Finn will go to the hacienda and collect Ilda and Arlo.”

Nodding, Casey began to pack the pockets of his cargos with his usual necessities—a pair of knives, garrote wire, a utility tool, extra clips for his 9mm, fishing line, fresh gauze and a rolled bandage, antiseptic wipes, a clean bandana. His satellite phone was charging off to the side, the GPS tracker already turned on and speaking to Della, who monitored their movements and was listening in with Beth and Gavin, neither of whom made the trip—Gavin because he was too injured to be of any use, and Beth because, well, she was determined to remain out of the life. Not that Casey blamed her; after a decade as an assassin, starting in her teens, she deserved the somewhat normal life she’d worked so hard to hold onto. Not to mention, it was obvious that Vick wanted her nowhere near the action, at not quite two months out from Beth’s run-in with a rogue MI6 torturer.

Earlier in the day, Casey had parked a vehicle near the hacienda, hidden by the trees. As soon as he and Finn dealt with the security left behind, they’d grab the girls and head down the ravine to where the Land Rover waited. They’d then head to the remote airstrip to the west—little more than a cow pasture—meet up with Vick, Chandler, Tobias and a paid-for Adam, and Captain Okumura would fly them to Chicago.

It was a good plan. Simple but effective, and involving minimal human casualties. Pipe had killed dozens of innocents last night using Faraday weapons and critically injured over a hundred more, if the hospital intake logs were to be believed. Casey couldn’t countenance any more senseless violence, not if he could help it. That meant incapacitating any brigadiers left on the hacienda, keeping as many of the auction-goers alive as possible, despite their obvious criminality.